WaPo: When it comes to crime, Democrats are in danger of being mugged by reality
Democrats finally managed to escape the “soft on crime” label in the 1990s in part because crime rates began to fall, but also because they took action to show that they could be tough, too. The centerpiece of their efforts was the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, written by then-Sen. Joe Biden and signed by President Bill Clinton. This complex legislation had a bit of everything: the Violence Against Women Act to crack down on domestic abuse, treatment programs for drug addicts, federal funds to build prisons and hire cops, and tough gun controls including a ban on assault rifles. But progressives blamed the law — perhaps unfairly — for the mass incarceration of African American men, and in 2020 Biden was forced to renounce the legislation he had written.
Biden’s walk-back from his erstwhile “Lock the S.O.B.s up” ethos came after the murder of George Floyd. This outrage triggered Black Lives Matter protests and led to “defund the police” calls just as crime rates were spiking. While murder rates remain below their nationwide peaks in the early 1990s, 2020 saw a 30 percent jump in homicides — the largest increase in at least a century. The rise in the murder rate slowed in 2021, but a dozen major cities recorded the highest number of homicides ever.
Democrats might think they don’t have to worry about “law and order” concerns, because these concerns did not prevent a Biden victory in 2020. But just because you dodged a bullet once doesn’t mean you will always be so lucky. Donald Trump was the incumbent in 2020. That made it hard for Republicans to blame crime on Democrats. Even so, “defund the police” hurt down-ballot Democrats. After the election, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) warned: “We [need to] look at the things that [Republicans] say about us … because it works.”
The political carnage this year could be even worse if Democrats don’t do more to reestablish their crime-fighting bona fides. The party has mercifully abandoned talk of defunding the police after that concept was repeatedly rejected at the ballot box. (A growing number of voters, including Black and Hispanic Democrats, want more, not less, spending on police.) But the Democratic brand is badly tarnished by progressive district attorneys in cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York who insist on trying to reduce the number of incarcerations during a crime wave. Liberal legislatures have also passed lenient bail laws, which mean that offenders are often out on the streets in record time.
Even many liberal Democrats are rebelling against the progressive prosecutors. San Francisco Mayor London Breed sharply criticized District Attorney Chesa Boudin, saying that “these ideologies have been what has failed our city” and “failed Black people in our city.” And in Philadelphia, former mayor Michael Nutter, who is African American, unloaded on the White, progressive DA, writing: “I have to wonder what kind of messed up world of white wokeness [Larry] Krasner is living in to have so little regard for human lives lost, many of them Black and brown.”
Biden needs to add his voice to the chorus of criticism, making clear that Democrats, as a whole, reject the lenient approach of progressive prosecutors. Democrats need to demonstrate that, while they reject racist and abusive policing, they are pro-police — and tough on crime. Biden unveiled a decent crime-control strategy in June that called for stemming the flow of illegal firearms, supporting local law enforcement and investing in community violence interventions, but he has barely mentioned it since.
Democrats finally managed to escape the “soft on crime” label in the 1990s in part because crime rates began to fall, but also because they took action to show that they could be tough, too. The centerpiece of their efforts was the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, written by then-Sen. Joe Biden and signed by President Bill Clinton. This complex legislation had a bit of everything: the Violence Against Women Act to crack down on domestic abuse, treatment programs for drug addicts, federal funds to build prisons and hire cops, and tough gun controls including a ban on assault rifles. But progressives blamed the law — perhaps unfairly — for the mass incarceration of African American men, and in 2020 Biden was forced to renounce the legislation he had written.
Biden’s walk-back from his erstwhile “Lock the S.O.B.s up” ethos came after the murder of George Floyd. This outrage triggered Black Lives Matter protests and led to “defund the police” calls just as crime rates were spiking. While murder rates remain below their nationwide peaks in the early 1990s, 2020 saw a 30 percent jump in homicides — the largest increase in at least a century. The rise in the murder rate slowed in 2021, but a dozen major cities recorded the highest number of homicides ever.
Democrats might think they don’t have to worry about “law and order” concerns, because these concerns did not prevent a Biden victory in 2020. But just because you dodged a bullet once doesn’t mean you will always be so lucky. Donald Trump was the incumbent in 2020. That made it hard for Republicans to blame crime on Democrats. Even so, “defund the police” hurt down-ballot Democrats. After the election, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) warned: “We [need to] look at the things that [Republicans] say about us … because it works.”
The political carnage this year could be even worse if Democrats don’t do more to reestablish their crime-fighting bona fides. The party has mercifully abandoned talk of defunding the police after that concept was repeatedly rejected at the ballot box. (A growing number of voters, including Black and Hispanic Democrats, want more, not less, spending on police.) But the Democratic brand is badly tarnished by progressive district attorneys in cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York who insist on trying to reduce the number of incarcerations during a crime wave. Liberal legislatures have also passed lenient bail laws, which mean that offenders are often out on the streets in record time.
Even many liberal Democrats are rebelling against the progressive prosecutors. San Francisco Mayor London Breed sharply criticized District Attorney Chesa Boudin, saying that “these ideologies have been what has failed our city” and “failed Black people in our city.” And in Philadelphia, former mayor Michael Nutter, who is African American, unloaded on the White, progressive DA, writing: “I have to wonder what kind of messed up world of white wokeness [Larry] Krasner is living in to have so little regard for human lives lost, many of them Black and brown.”
Biden needs to add his voice to the chorus of criticism, making clear that Democrats, as a whole, reject the lenient approach of progressive prosecutors. Democrats need to demonstrate that, while they reject racist and abusive policing, they are pro-police — and tough on crime. Biden unveiled a decent crime-control strategy in June that called for stemming the flow of illegal firearms, supporting local law enforcement and investing in community violence interventions, but he has barely mentioned it since.
